Dedy & Zen

It wasn’t long after that first dance at the lawyer’s oath taking that Dedy and Zenaida Esperanza, also known as Zen started dating. They quickly became inseparable. “She was the most beautiful girl I have ever seen,” Dedy often said.

Zen remembers..

At the Vicar Hotel –Jan.18,1952; Dagupan CityAs I looked back the first time we met was during your Oath taking as a new lawyer, 60 years ago two months short of our 60th wedding anniversary, ( January.9,2014 ) you were a young 26 year-old lawyer and I was 19 – a public school teacher. Why did we meet? Mayor Atty. Bernardo Aquino of Manaoag Pangasinan is the cousin of Papang who was invited by The Pangasinan Bar Association on the Oath taking of lawyers passing the bar of 1951, released Jan.18,1952.

Mayor Tio Bernardo ask Papang if he can invite Sally ( Atching )who is older than me, but Papang said, “si Zen la ta mahilig Ed sayan, si Salud payat.” So I was fetched by several lawyers with their wives who were also my uncles and aunties; Atty. & Mrs. Donato Suyat ,Judge Tiong also of Manaoag, Pangasinan & Tia Lyda Aquino, also my aunt.

You approached me after a dance with Judge Tiong who dance the Tango very well. You did dance with me the whole night with no other partner, I don’t know what happened and I ask what’s wrong and you just smiled like Mona Lisa and you said to me you were magnetized.You took pictures of me by asking the photographer around which you show to me the next day after the dance and the oath taking ceremonies took place and you accompanied us to the parking lot and you visited me daily without missing a single day from the time we met up to our wedding day. I am very proud to tell you I am counting God’s blessing with our 9 very caring loving responsible children whom we love so much and I called them our treasures , Jewels of diamond with gold—they are all our PRIDE.

I love you Papa with all my heart, I am with you caring , serving with our beloved children.

Your beloved wife, ZEN

Dedy & Zen

Several months later the couple decided to get married in a civil ceremony. “I was a new lawyer then and most of my clients didn’t have the means to pay for my services,” Dedy once recalled. “So I had no money to do a proper church wedding so we had to settle for a civil ceremony.” Later on their friends pitched-in money to help them fund their church wedding. And so they did.